The missile came on the heels of an olive branch tendered by the Trump Administration. A week ago, Secretary of State Rex Tillersontold the world,

"I think it is worth noting, we have had no missile launches or provocative acts on the part of, or provocative actions, on the part of North Korea since unanimous adoption of the UN Security Council resolution" [on August 5]. I am pleased to see that the regime in Pyongyang has demonstrated restraint, We hope this is the signal we have been looking for, that they are ready to restrain provocative acts. And perhaps we are seeing a pathway in the near future to having some dialogue."

North Korea responded three days later by firing thee missiles into the sea. The missile shot over Japan was a super-sized exclamation point heard around the world.

Why didn´t Kim accept Washington´s olive branch?

Our prior post gave the answer:

"Here is something that neither Kissinger nor Trump [nor Tillerson] understands. Ultimately, he who controls the definition of the situation controls the situation.

Kim and/or the people around him seem to be keenly aware of that reality. To cover up the fact he backed down on the missile launch near Guam, Kim said he is waiting to see what the ´foolish Yankees´ do next."

Kim was not going to let him get away with it. In more ways than words can ever tell, with the missile launches Kim took back control of the definition of the situation, hence, of the situation.

Kim´s language is the language of power. Grammar, syntax and vocabulary, it has not varied for millennia. Given that context -- and in international affairs all of us all given it, like it or not -- Tillerson´s olive branch is viewed at best as neurotic, at worse as a symptom of Ganser syndrome, i.e., nonsensical or wrong answers to questions or doing things incorrectly. (Example: "What time is it?" Answer: "Thursday.")

Our prior post gave the non-nuclear solution to the North Korean crisis. The language of JFK during the Cuban Missile Crisis, it is the language of power everywhere.

The White House needs to find somebody who speaks it -- fast.

Footnote: August 29, 1:30 p.m. The White House issued this formal response to North Korea´s missile over Japan:

"The world has received North Korea’s latest message loud and clear: this regime has signaled its contempt for its neighbors, for all members of the United Nations, and for minimum standards of acceptable international behavior.

​Threatening and destabilizing actions only increase the North Korean regime’s isolation in the region and among all nations of the world. All options are on the table."

That reply is not appropriate. It continues to relate directly to Kim instead of bypassing him entirely and confronting President Xi of China about the missile launch.

Trump, Tillerson et al just don´t get it.

Update: August 30. This item just came in.

Kim announced the missile that flew over Japan was “the first step of the military operation of the Korean People’s Army in the Pacific and a meaningful prelude to containing Guam.” He added there would be “more ballistic rocket launching drills with the Pacific as a target in the future,” but claimed he would watch “U.S. demeanours” before deciding on future actions.

By now it should be clear that Tillerson´s and Trump´s statements praising Kim´s "restraint" over not testing missiles after the heightened UN sanctions and "very wise and well-reasoned decision" not to fire missiles at Guam only invited the very thing they were intended to prevent: heightened North Korean aggression in words and deeds.

Worst of all -- possibly fatal -- was Trump´s assertion that Kim is "starting to respect us" (August 23). Let´s say it again:

(1) What a puppet thinks one way or another is of no importance. A slave always thinks with the brain of his master.

(2) In Kim´s book, Trump was trying to define the situation: Kim feels this; Kim thinks that. In order to show he and not Trump controls definitions,Kim was forced to show otherwise. Thus, Trump unwittingly encouraged the very behavior he opposes.

It shall be the policy of this nation to regard any nuclear missile launched from North Korea against any ally of the United States as an attack by China on the United States, requiring a full retaliatory response upon China.

That Doctrine would make -- not suggest, request or beg -- China the Puppet Master responsible for its puppet.

2. Given that doctrine, the appropriate response to the missile over Japan would have been: if a North Korean missile enters the airspace of Japan or other ally of America, it will be regarded by the United States as an attack by China on the United States, requiring a full retaliatory response upon China.

You would see North Korea´s rocket drills magically evaporate within hours.

There you have it -- the language of power.

Caution: for reasons given in our prior post, The Belvedere Doctrine will not -- cannot -- be implemented. For that reason, it is opinion, not advice.

Pyongyang also promised to continue its military build-up, despite the harsh package of restrictions on the its economy enacted by the UN.

Trump said he was “very happy and impressed” by the unanimous approval at the UN of the sanctions.

August 9. “North Korea best not make any more threats to the United States,” Trump told reporters in remarks aired on television and broadcast around the globe. “They will be met with fire and fury like the world has never seen.”

August 9. North Korea said it was drawing up plans to launch four missiles into waters near Guam in mid-August to teach Trump a lesson after the president´s “fire and fury” warning which North Korea labelled “nonsense.”

August 14. Defense Secretary Jim Mattis announced that if North Korea fired missiles near Guam, “It´s game on.”

August 14. Kim Jong-un temporarily backed off his missile launch near Guam, saying he would continue to watch the “foolish and stupid conduct of the Yankees” before deciding whether to give an order for the launch.

August 16. Trump tweeted: "Kim Jong Un of North Korea made a very wise and well reasoned decision. The alternative would have been both catastrophic and unacceptable!"

Let us entertain an unthinkable thought:

Could Kim Jong-un be correct in characterizing America´s conduct as “foolish and stupid”? If you find my question utterly unacceptable, look at it this way: is there something in American conduct/statements that would lead Kim to believe that U.S. was foolish and stupid?

Every single one of the Trump-Kim interactions noted above show Trump is lost on North Korea.

The reason: there never should have been any interactions in the first place – not one.

* * *​

Everybody agrees on three things:

(i) A nuclear-armed North Korea is not acceptable. Even China says so, at least on a formal level. So, what is to be done?

(ii) China is THE major player in this crisis.

They are right.

As our previous post noted, without Chinese intervention in the Korean War, there would be no North Korea today.

(iii) Finally, everybody agrees China will as usual do little or nothing in the current crisis. It will pay lip service to the latest UN sanctions which are in reality to its benefit. The sanctions will increase the value of Chinese contraband exports to North Korea.

Our prior post discussed the key to solving the crisis: how do you make the Chinese government be responsible for North Korea?

Note the use of the word make. We will expand on it shortly.

The answer was given in our prior post:

The same way JFK made Russia be responsible for missiles in Cuba during the Cuban missile crisis of 1962.

"It shall be the policy of this nation to regard any nuclear missile launched from Cuba against any nation in the Western Hemisphere as an attack by the Soviet Union on the United States, requiring a full retaliatory response upon the Soviet Union...

The path we have chosen for the present is full of hazards, as all paths are; but it is the one most consistent with our character and courage as a nation and our commitments around the world."

The equivalent doctrine today would have solved the present U.S.-North Korea crisis without war ... because there never would have been a crisis:

It shall be the policy of this nation to regard any nuclear missile launched from North Korea against any ally of the United States as an attack by China on the United States, requiring a full retaliatory response upon China.

Say what you will, JFK´s doctrine worked. There was no war, nuclear or otherwise. You are alive.

Our prior post noted that for those readers who believe The Belvedere Doctrine is too severe, don´t worry. It cannot and will not be implemented.

To do so would junk Henry Kissinger´s totally mistaken policy of forming an alliance with China at all costs. As our "Debunked" post (see below) made clear from a secret State Department memo, Kissinger´s motive was to punish Vietnam who he viscerally hated because that nation defeated him, humiliated him.

(Our alternative: America should have united with India and Southeast Asia nations – yes, Vietnam included – against China.For why Kissinger´s pro-China architecture of international relations, which Washington steadfastly preserves to this day, is nonsensical and unconscionable, please see our post "´Henery´ Kissinger Debunked" (August 11, 2015).

We come to why Trump´s Korea policy is incompetent:

To repeat, you must make the puppet-master be responsible for his puppet. During the Cuban missile crisis, JFK dealt only with Russia, never with the Castro Government. That position is diametrically opposed to Trump´s handling of North Korea:

(i) "If it would be appropriate for me to meet with [Kim Jong-un], I would absolutely, I would be honored to do it," Trump told Bloomberg News.

Honored ...

(ii) “He was a young man of 26 or 27 when he took over from his father, when his father died. He’s dealing with obviously very tough people,” Trump told CBS’ John Dickerson in an interview that aired on Sunday’s episode of Face the Nation.

“A lot of people, I’m sure, tried to take that power away, whether it was his uncle or anybody else,” Trump continued. “And he was able to do it, so obviously, he’s a pretty smart cookie.”

Trump´s clumsy and naive gratuitous commentary displayed a stunning ignorance of how the Kim dynasty operates, perpetuates itself. Why should it come as a surprise that Kim thinks Americans are foolish and stupid?

(iii) We come to the crown jewel in Trump´s crown of errors.

I repeat Trump´s most recent comment cited above regarding Kim´s postponement of shooting missiles near Guam: "Kim Jong Un of North Korea made a very wise and well reasoned decision."

I also repeat that JFK studiously avoided any direct links with the Castro Government throughout the 1962 crisis; it was if that government did not exist.

Instead of citing Kim´s “wise” decision, then, the correct approach for Trump would have been to acknowledge the constructive role played by China´s President Xi Jinping in annulling the missile launch. When all is said and done, he was the man who said "No" and caused the annulment.

China acted responsibly – finally. Necessity should not be converted into a virtue, however; the growing threat of nuclear war made the difference.

​That makes our JFK-inspired doctrine enunciated above – which, again, cannot be implemented given existing U.S. policy -- all the more reasonable and realistic. Plainly speaking, it would have yanked China´s chain. You would have seen real responsibility and concrete remedial action a long time ago from Peking – fast.

I will conclude this point by noting that if thousands of people die in an America-North Korea war, it will only be the start of the world catastrophe created by Kissinger´s pro-China-at-any-price policy. I will put aside for the moment the thousands of American factories closed and jobs lost -- the countless American lives ruined -- on account of one man´s petty vindictiveness.

Here is something that neither Kissinger nor Trump understands. Ultimately, he who controls the definition of the situation controls the situation.

Kim is keenly aware of that reality. To cover up the fact he backed down on the missile launch near Guam, he says he is waiting to see what the “foolish Yankees” do next.

Kim´s qualifier of holding off the launch “for now” is of course meaningless. It is the equivalent of being a little bit pregnant, a sometimes friendly tiger, a mediocre helicopter pilot.

The United States needs to counter Kim´s definition of the situation by implementing its own definition. As mentioned above, instead of reinforcing Kim´s definition by congratulating Kim, the U.S. should have congratulated China.

Similarly, when Kim tells the U.S. “It´s your move,” the U.S. should de facto rebuke him by making the next move up to China.

“A military response to North Korea would be ´horrific´ but remains an option, the top military adviser to US President Donald Trump says.

Gen Joseph Dunford, chairman of the US Joint Chiefs of Staff, made the comments while visiting China.

He was responding to remarks by a top Trump aide ruling out military action over North Korea's nuclear programme.

Tensions have flared between the US and North Korea after Pyongyang made advances in its missile testing.

Mr Trump has warned the North that it faces ´fire and fury´, while Pyongyang has threatened to strike the American territory of Guam.

But the sharp rhetoric of last week has since softened, with North Korea leader Kim Jong-un putting the Guam plans on hold - a move praised by President Trump ...

Chief White House strategist Steve Bannon said on Wednesday there could be no military solution to the stand-off.

´Until somebody solves the part of the equation that shows me that 10 million people in Seoul don't die in the first 30 minutes from conventional weapons, I don't know what you're talking about, there's no military solution here, they got us,´ he told The American Prospect.”

They got us? Ah, noooo.

North Korea has been holding Seoul as well as the U.S. hostage with its missiles and conventional artillery in caves near the border. When you come down to it, that is the sole leverage Kim has. Artillery is how North Korea has been defining the situation for decades.

Bannon wanted a solution to the “equation." Here it is.

​Please note the range of Kim´s artillery on the map attached to this post. Obviously, if Seoul and the northern area of South Korea were evacuated – or safely placed in underground bunkers -- North Korea would lose its leverage. It would cease to define the situation, hence control it.

Insightful discussions of shelters for/evacuations of South Koreans are numerous. We take no sides on their feasibility/infeasibility. Our point is that the mere discussion, analysis and vigorous implementation as never before of evacuation and disaster management would strip North Korea of its ace.

Together, making China responsible for North Korea – all of it -- and initiating a full-court press to protect the South Korean population would create a continental shift in American-Korean relations, hence, in international relations in general.

(2) Why Trump´s ineptness is not limited to the North Korean crisis.

No matter how reasonable and realistic the two polices just mentioned may be, neither will be realized because of one man: Donald Trump.

At this moment, not North Korea but Trump´s daily stumbling and fumbling of Charlottesville and white supremacists and racism and Confederate statues are a classic display of what we observed in earlier posts regarding Trump´s personality.

We cited two key conclusions of C.G. Jung:​

(i) “A man who is possessed by his shadow* is always standing in his own light and falling into his own traps. Whenever possible, he prefers to make an unfavourable impression on others. In the long run luck is always against him, because he is living below his own level and at best only attains what does not suit him. And if there is no doorstep for him to stumble over, he manufactures one for himself and then fondly believes he has done something useful." C. G. Jung, "The Archetypes and The Collective Unconscious," in Collected Works, ¶ 222, p. 3,631.

(ii) “An inflated consciousness is always egocentric and conscious of nothing but its own presence. It is incapable of learning from the past, incapable of understanding contemporary events, and incapable of drawing right conclusions about the future. It is hypnotized by itself and therefore cannot be argued with. It inevitably dooms itself to calamities that must strike it dead.” C.G. Jung, "Religious Ideas in Alchemy," in Collected Works, Volume 12 ¶ 563, pp. 6005-6.

Hopefully, we have gone part of the way to explain why Trump is clueless, and not just regarding North Korea. Foolish. Stupid. Why he cannot be corrected; why he cannot understand what is going on around him; why he keeps making the same mistakes. Why he just doesn´t get it.

Update: August 23, 2017. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson noted in a press briefing yesterday:

"I'm pleased to see that the regime in Pyongyang has certainly demonstrated some level of restraint that we've not seen in the past...Perhaps we are seeing our pathway to sometime in the early future having some dialogue."

The Belvedere Doctrine opposes Tillerson´s approach. America should thank China for "new restraint" demonstrated in the Korean peninsula crisis. Dialogue with North Korea -- for the moment -- should not be put in play.

Our policy builds on Chinese President Xi´s telephone call to Trump urging him to "exercise restraint" regarding North Korea. In so doing, we place responsibility where it needs to be placed.

Even more inappropriate was Trump´s comment yesterday that Kim Jong-un "is starting to respect us." North Korea promptly responded by referring to Trump as that "mad guy" who regularly posts "weird articles of his ego-driven thoughts in his twitter."

The issue is if China, not Kim, is starting to respect us.​_______________

A summary of C.G.Jung: "´The shadowpersonifies everything that the subject refuses to acknowledge about himself´ and represents ´a tight passage, a narrow door, whose painful constriction no one is spared who goes down to the deep well´. If and when 'an individual makes an attempt to see his shadow, he becomes aware of (and often ashamed of) those qualities and impulses he denies in himself but can plainly see in others — such things as egotism, mental laziness, and sloppiness; unreal fantasies, schemes, and plots; carelessness and cowardice; inordinate love of money and possessions — ...[a] painful and lengthy work of self-education´".

It shall be the policy of this nation to regard any nuclear missile launched from Cuba against any nation in the Western Hemisphere as an attack by the Soviet Union on the United States, requiring a full retaliatory response upon the Soviet Union...

The path we have chosen for the present is full of hazards, as all paths are; but it is the one most consistent with our character and courage as a nation and our commitments around the world. -- President John Kennedy, Cuban Missile Crisis Address to The Nation --

A Necessary Preface:

Our regular readers know our long-standing policy:

This blog does not give advice; it offers opinion. The line between them is not always clear. Please keep in mind three considerations:

An opinion may consist of advice which is (i) deliberately offered too late to be actionable; (ii) knowingly impossible to implement due to circumstances prevailing at the moment; and/or (iii) offered with the foreknowledge that the simple fact of its publication will render its practical value null and void.

The following post is opinion by criteria (i) and (ii).

North Korea best not make any more threats to the United States. They will be met with fire and fury like the world has never seen... -- President Donald Trump, August 8, 2017 –

If [Japan´s leaders] do not now accept our terms they may expect a rain of ruin from the air, the like of which has never been seen on this earth. -- President Harry Truman, August 6, 1945 –

President Truman´s threat, made only hours after the nuclear bombing of Hiroshima, was ignored. Three days later, Nagasaki was bombed.

Expect Trump´s warning to also go unheeded. Our post “The Impending War With North Korea” of April 30, 2017, explained why:

"What Washington has never understood is that in a dictatorship, there are no intermediate positions to slow, much less prevent, a fall from power. It´s all or nothing.

​Kim Jong-un simply cannot give in and give up his nuclear weapons program. Working on China to pressure Kim to stop his program is important and necessary -- "The key to this is China," according to Senator John McCain -- but in the end is likely to be ineffective.

In North Korea today … everything revolves around the army. To abandon the nuclear weapons program would mean giving into the enemy. Peace, even as a suggestion, would deprive the massive North Korean army of its reason for being; Kim too. Ergo, Kim would go.

If Kim miscalculates -- if he backs down and gives up his nuclear missile program -- look for a coup d´etat or a bullet in the head or a knife in the back just as surely as Mexico had a revolution."

All such men sleep with a pistol under the pillow. When "they" come for him anyway, he will utter the same words all such men -- notably Stalin´s secret police chief Lavrentiy Beria -- utter when the quick trip in the service elevator to the basement arrives:

​"I should have killed you when I had the chance."

The United States should maintain an open-door policy toward all foreign leaders. That includes talks with Kim Jong-un. However, to suddenly seek talks for the first time on a presidential level immediately AFTER North Korea has successfully fired ICBMs capable of reaching the U.S. sends absolutely, totally the wrong message.

​To understand the doctrine I am about to enunciate requires a brief look back at how things got the way they are in Korea:

On June 25, 1950, North Korean troops invaded South Korea. The UN and United States entered the war on South Korea´s side. North Korean forces were forced back to the Yalu River separating China and North Korea.

In October of 1950, Chinese troops in massive numbers poured across the river in support of North Korea. The UN-U.S. troops were pushed back to the 38th parallel where a war of attrition started. On July 27, 1953 an armistice was signed that created the territorial division that exists today.

The indisputable conclusion: without Chinese intervention, there would be no North Korea today.

​From the very beginning, the correct strategy for the United States would have been, on monumental matters such as war and peace, to treat North Korea for what it is: a puppet of China.

That of course means no direct peace talks between Trump and Kim.

Instead, as JFK did during the Cuban missile crisis, America would deal only with the puppet master – Russia, in JFK´s case; China, in Trump´s – and ignore the puppet. Throughout the Cuban missile crisis there was never any serious consideration by Washington of holding direct talks with the Castro Government.

JFK´s policy worked. War was averted.

What we are saying is diametrically opposed to Trump´s position. "If it would be appropriate for me to meet with [Kim Jong-un], I would absolutely, I would be honored to do it," Trump told Bloomberg News.

We noted in our April "Impending War" post that (i) we agreed with Senator McCain and others that China is central to resolving the North Korea crisis; however, (ii) it is highly unlikely under existing conditions that China will make any significant changes.

China plays Kim Jong-un as an unwelcome, irritating child by which China gains leverage (read: extorts concessions) with the U.S. We will help you with Kim if in the upcoming China-U.S. trade talks you will…

Given China´s tsk-tsk relationship with Kim, the increased sanctions trumpeted last week are a hoax. Indeed, contraband goods from China to North Korea will now increase in value.

And so, the question comes down to: how can the existing changes be changed? How do you make China, the puppet master, responsible for its puppet?

Answer: the same way KFK made Khrushchev responsible for nuclear weapons in Cuba.

Let´s repeat JFK´s exact words:

It shall be the policy of this nation to regard any nuclear missile launched from Cuba against any nation in the Western Hemisphere as an attack by the Soviet Union on the United States, requiring a full retaliatory response upon the Soviet Union...

The Belvedere Doctrine would have solved the present U.S.-North Korea crisis without war ... because there never would have been a crisis in the first place:

It shall be the policy of this nation to regard any nuclear missile launched from North Korea against any ally of the United States as an attack by China on the United States, requiring a full retaliatory response upon China.

That Doctrine cannot be enacted. To do so would undo Henry Kissinger´s gravely mistaken policy of forming an alliance with China instead of uniting with India and Southeast Asia nations – yes, Vietnam included – against China. For why Kissinger´s architecture of international relations, which Washington preserves to this day, is so destructive and unconscionable, please see our post of August 11, 2015 "´Henery´ Kissinger Debunked."

If millions of people die in an America-North Korea war, it will only be the start of the world catastrophe Henry Kissinger´s clumsy and naive pro-China-at-any-price policy caused.

To the point:

Our JFK-inspired doctrine would have yanked China´s chain. You would have seen concrete remedial action from Peking – fast.

​Maybe, minutes.

Update: August 14, 2017.

Readers are asking: is there not a peaceful way to stop North Korea´s missile development program -- a way that would be effective but would not violate our policy of opinion versus advice and which would not reach back all the way to the 1950s?

Yes, there is a way. It is common sense.

What you are about to read cannot be implemented due to prevailing prejudices among United States military and political leaders:​Once North Korean missiles leave its air space, why doesn´t the United States simply shoot them down? That way, North Korea would (i) learn little or nothing decisive from its tests, and (ii) inadvertently assist the development of American defense systems.

On both accounts, North Korea would be highly predisposed to discontinue the tests.

The answer is, when the question is put to U.S. military experts, simply turns out to be not so simple:

The viewpoint of the Pentagon and military experts is given in this CNN article. The key portion:

[Adam Mount, senior fellow at the Center for American Progress] said Pyongyang's threats to launch multiple missiles at Guam could be a deliberate action to call the United States' bluff on missile defense.

"It was no accident that North Korea threatened to launch four missiles, it deliberately complicates the decisions of US policy makers," he said.

If any of the four long-range missiles successfully made it through US defense, Mount said, it would be a huge victory for the rogue state.

"If the United States did try to intercept the missiles they would want to intercept all of them, because failing to intercept them all would send a message about the (US's) limited capacity ... those systems aren't perfect," he said.

For its part, North Korea keeps testing missiles despite the fact some of them fail. America keeps testing too, for that matter. Neither lets the prospect of embarrassment stop them.

A huge victory for North Korea if a single missile were not destroyed? What utter nonsense. Get real, Washington.

Each North Korean missile test should be viewed as a golden opportunity. Nobody expects a bull’s-eye every time in what would be the established context: target practice. A touch of irony – inscrutable to North Korea´s leaders but comprehensible to everybody else -- could spice up the formal announcement of The Belvedere Doctrine:

We welcome North Korea´s ICBM tests. They help us improve our anti-missile defense system in a realistic setting and at great savings to the American taxpayer.

When he heard the news, Donald Trump must have felt his mind wobble, seen the earth rotate.

Department of Justice Special Counsel Robert Mueller recently expanded his investigation of Russian influence in the 2016 election to include Trump´s finances.

It´s about time.

The scheduled Senate hearings amount to poor boy, get-of-jail-free cards to the Trumps. Donald Trump Junior and ex-Trump campaign chief Paul Manaford will not be under oath when they testify in private session before the Senate Judiciary Committee, apparently on the condition that they hand over some records and will not plead the Fifth Amendment, i.e., say nothing.

Of course, they will say nothing anyway. The hearings will be a hoax because unless someone is under oath, he can lie all he wants and not commit perjury, a federal crime.

It is no loss for congress or the country to have a person repeatedly take the Fifth Amendment in a public hearing. Watch this video of Martin Shkreli chronically plead the Fifth before congress in 2015. In case you have forgotten, Shkreli was labelled "the most hated man in America" for raising the price of a Daraprim dose, an anti-AIDS and cancer drug, from $13.50 to $750. In 2017, Shkreli was convicted of security fraud.

If no side deals had been cut between congress and the Trumps, we would have been treated to a televised Shkreli-type spectacle in which the Trumps took the Firth and nothing but the Fifth. If you do not know what Americans would have concluded, ask your friendly 15-year-old neighbor; she will be happy to set you straight.

The Senate either does not know how the game is played or knows only too well. Incompetent or corrupt? In a prior post this blog gave the definitive answer to that perennial question:

Incompetent or corrupt, it makes no difference.

Mueller apparently looked at the conditions set for the phony Senate hearings and inevitable have-a-nice-day testimonies, shook his head in disgust, and decided to take matters into his own hands. He impaneled a grand jury and sent out subpoenas.

The investigation of Russian influence of the 2016 election was from the very beginning a side show.

Our post "Why Hillary Lost" shows conclusively the Russians did not make her lose the White House. The cause: Sanders voters in Wisconsin, Michigan and Pennsylvania were filled with cognitive dissonance about whom to vote for. To relieve their discomfort, they stayed home, thereby handing those states and the presidency to Trump.

To create ambivalence and dissonance in hundreds of thousands of people who are in a targeted group requires a sophistication that only a handful of people possess. No Trump campaign consultant or Russian is among them.

The Russian election influence scandal was a distraction from what?

We come to The Laundry Hypothesis:

The Trump organization laundered money for the Russian mafia and who knows who else. For background on this subject, see this well-documented article in the New Republic, "Trump´s Russian Laundromat." Please also see our post published September 20, 2015, "How to Knock Out Donald Trump," which outlined Donald Trump´s American mafia connections.

There is only one credible way to reject The Laundry Hypothesis: not wind-bag assertions by politicos and their lawyers but if the Mueller investigation proves the null hypothesis: the Trump organization did not engage in money laundering.

It is well-known the Kremlin favored the election of Trump over Clinton. Why? I suspect the Russians thought that Trump´s money-laundering activities could serve as a leverage point to manipulate him.

Once in the White House, however, Trump´s erratic behavior may have led the Russians to conclude that he is too mentally unstable to be useful. His signature into law a few days ago of the Russia sanctions bill was the final blow.

If Russian disenchantment with Trump is serious enough, the Kremlin will be amenable to providing one or two smoking guns that will lead to Trump´s impeachment.

Trump´s mercurial behavior and aberrant statements may have a source which is so banal as to be overlooked: the onset of dementia.